St. Gertrude’s Parish Center has for decades provided hundreds of children in Bayville and Locust Valley with a place to play basketball in a fun, safe environment. Now, thanks to the generosity of community members and parishioners, the center’s lighting system has been overhauled for the first time in decades, fixing a problem that had plagued the space for years.
While updating the lighting had been discussed for several years, the initiative was sparked by a conversation between two St. Gertrude’s parishioners, Bayville Mayor Steve Minicozzi and Brian Keaveney, who is involved in St. Gertrude’s Catholic Youth Organization, which oversees the athletics programs at the church.
Keaveney and Minicozzi, who has also coached in the CYO program, explained that the lights were originally installed when the gym was constructed in 1977, using incandescent bulbs that had not been replaced since then, and in the past decade, many of them had begun to weaken or burned out.
“The glaring issue we all saw was that the lights at the parish center, where the gym is, were just so poor,” Keaveney said. “I’d hear people saying, ‘The space is so beautiful, we just need to get some lights in here.’”
One of the biggest challenges was the sheer size of the space. The ceiling is roughly 25 feet high, and most standard ladders cannot reach the lights. So as they began to burn out, the church’s only option was to wheel in an automated lift or climb up the scaffolding, both time-consuming and inefficient processes.
According to Tim Wilson, the director of the church’s CYO program, it serves 225 to 250 children, depending on the season. Wilson said that while the program continued to be well-attended, the lack of lighting had become a serious problem.
“When a couple of those lights go, the gym is not dark, per se, but it gets darker,” he said. “Then it takes a while to organize to get everybody lined up to either get the lift or to get the scaffolding set up.”
Keaveney called Minicozzi, who had looked into the cost of fixing the lighting system several years ago, in early December. The two decided to set up a GoFundMe page for the project, and were astonished by the swiftness of the response. In less than 24 hours, the page had raised more than $15,000 for the renovations. Minicozzi attributed the response to the community engagement of Bayville and Locust Valley residents, many of whom, like Minicozzi, grew up playing sports at St. Gertrude’s.
“It’s a very successful program,” he said. “It’s a great thing for the kids to do, to keep active during the wintertime.”
Work began on the project almost immediately. By Jan. 3, roughly a month after Minicozzi and Keaveney’s initial conversation, the entire gym had been brightened by a new LED light system.
Since then, Wilson noted, the St. Gertrude’s CYO has received numerous compliments from parishioners, visiting teams and their families and even referees. He emphasized that while the space was always beautiful and well-maintained, people can now fully appreciate it.
“It’s a really nice facility for a smaller-gym size,” Wilson said, “and once you light it up, now it looks even better.”
And the gym wasn’t the only facility where the lighting was repaired. According to Minicozzi, the response to the GoFundMe effort was so overwhelming, raising a total of roughly $18,000, that the church was also able to replace the lights in the parish center — including the kitchen, the stage and even the storage rooms and boiler room.
There are plans for more improvements and renovations. Minicozzi said that he and other parishioners were looking into updating the kitchen, and Keaveney added that they hoped to raise money next year to replace the basketball court’s floor.
Until then, young athletes and their parents will enjoy the new gym lights while they shoot hoops, thanks to the generosity of the people of Bayville and Locust Valley.